Chapter Text
The thing about ADHD medication is it eventually wears off. And when it wears off, you get bored. Bored enough to start doing stupid things, like listening to your father’s police scanner and sneaking out of the house at first mention of a dead body.
Essentially, Stiles could blame the whole debacle that followed on the lack of staying power of her Adderall, but that’s a debate for another time. Currently, she’s outside Scott’s house, wondering how best to capture his attention.
She’s called him twice, but both went ignored. Stiles scoffs, shoving her phone into her pocket. Melissa’s car isn’t here, which means another night shift, so she and Scott are in the clear until 7 AM. Her grin goes sharp when she sees the new edging Melissa put up against the side of her house. It’s for plants, but it looks sturdy enough.
She ends up on the roof of the house, right over the front porch and just under Scott’s window. She hasn’t snuck in like this in ages. There’s a faint light coming from his room, a little movement. Stiles steps up and suddenly, the movement shifts.
Crap, he heard her and now he’s going to check outside.
In a wild fumble to surprise him, Stiles slips, ends up hanging upside down by the drainpipe. Scott screams, she screams and very narrowly dodges a baseball bat.
“Stiles, what the hell are you doing!” Scott yells.
“You weren’t answering your phone!” In hindsight, this plan—like pretty much all the plans she has—was pretty poorly thought out. “Why do you have a bat?”
“I thought you were a predator!” Scott snaps defensively, though his embarrassment betrays him by way of faint red splotches on his cheeks.
“A pred—” She wheezes, swinging down to stand upright. “Look, I know it’s late, but you hear this. My dad left twenty minutes ago on a dispatch call. There’re bringing in every officer in Beacon County and even state police.”
“For what?” Stiles grins, reveling in the way Scott’s curiosity chips away at his better judgement.
“Two joggers found a body in the woods,” Stiles tells him excitedly. Scott doesn’t react like how she wants him to, instead cocking his head to look at her in confusion.
“A dead body?” Stiles groans in frustration, rolling her eyes.
“No, like a body of water,” she sneers. “Yes, jackass, a dead body!”
“You mean like murdered?” Curiosity and fear war on Scott’s face, but it doesn’t take a genius to see which one is going to win out.
“Well, they don’t know yet, but they do know it was girl, probably in her twenties.”
“Wait, hold on, if they found the body, then what are all those cops out there for?” Scott asks. Stiles grins, eager to share the best piece of news.
“Because they only found half of the body,” she says, unable to control her smile. “We’re going!”
*
In hindsight, this was Stiles’ worst mistake, the one she’ll regret for the rest of her life, but that’s years in the future. Right now, excitement shoots through her, propelling her to drive fast all the way out to the preserve.
Scott starts to lose his nerve a little, but it only takes a little coaxing to get him to follow along. Even as he trudges on behind her, he pokes holes in the plans. To be fair, she’d cobbled it together a little late, when her Adderall was starting to wear off.
As Scott’s bitching continues, Stiles hears something, the snap of twigs, and the low clicks police radios.
“Get down,” she hisses, grabbing Scott by the hood and yanking him down. “Okay, when I say, go!”
“Stiles—”
“Go!” Stiles scrambles up, sprinting.
“Stiles, wait,” Scott gasps, but when she turns to check on him, he’s already on his feet and stumbling to catch up.
She keeps going, her heart pounding loud in her ears. Suddenly, she’s blinded by flashlights and bombarded by a K9 cop. The German Shephard barks at her mercilessly.
“Hang on, hang on. This little delinquent belongs to me.” Her dad’s voice rings out, stopping everyone in their tracks. Stiles doesn’t even have to look up to know the look of disappointment and incredulity on his face.
“Hey, daddy,” she chirps, trying to put on her best daddy’s-little-girl voice. He rolls his eyes, completely immune.
“So,” he says, hauling her up. “You listen in to all my phone calls now?”
“No!” Stiles insists, plastering on a smile. “Not the boring ones…”
“Where’s the usual partner in crime?” her dad asks, scanning the surrounding trees.
“Who, Scott?” Stiles asks innocently. “No, he’s at—he’s at home. He didn’t want to come out. Said he wanted to get a good night’s sleep for lacrosse try outs tomorrow.” It’s not a total lie. He did say that, but Stiles leaves out the part where she completely steamrolled him and made him come along.
“Scott!” Her dad calls, clearly not believing a word Stiles say. Hopefully, Scott will just stay hidden. When her dad sends her on her way, she’ll just grab him, and they’ll make a break for it. Problem solved.
Except problem not solved, because her father grabs her by the back of her neck and begins frog marching her all the way to her car, lecturing her on privacy and state law.
To her utter horror, her dad goes all the way home with her and stays there. Stiles texts Scott frantically, waiting anxiously for a reply.
Around 1 AM, she gets a reply. All it says is “made it home. I’ll explain at school tomorrow.” Needless to say, Stiles barely gets any sleep.
*
Scott’s story is… bizarre. There’s no other word for it. He tells her about getting bitten, shows her the bloody gauze, and insists it was wolves he heard.
“Dude, there have been no wolves in California for like, sixty years,” Stiles tells him. “At least.”
“Well, if you don’t believe me about the wolf,” Scott starts. “You’re definitely not going to believe me about the body.”
“You found the body!?” Stiles gasps, knees buckling a little in excitement. She grabs Scotts forearms for balance, shaking him a little. He grimaces, nodding his head.
“Yeah, and it was awful,” he says. “I’m going to have nightmares for a month.”
“This is the best thing that happened to this town since forever,” Stiles gushes. “I mean, not for girl, or her family, or you know, the cops—” Just then, Jackson and Lydia walk towards them. Well, they glide towards them. Stiles cuts herself off, watching with wide eyes.
She’s had a thing for Jackson Whitmore since she was in the third grade, and she sincerely doubts it’ll ever go away, or that she’ll ever love anyone else. Admittedly, she doesn’t really know him that well, but she does know that he meets her class for class in AP’s and Honors. He’s a star athlete, dresses like a movie star, and has model-good looks. What’s not to love?
The only thorn in the situation is Lydia Martin.
Lydia Martin, with her A-List face, her glamourous hair, and her Victoria Secret Model body. Stiles paled in comparison on every front. Not only was Lydia stunning in the extreme, she was popular to boot. Even with all her gifts, she still had the audacity to beat Stiles out for class rank every year.
Untouchable Lydia Martin, with her untouchable popularity, untouchable boyfriend, and untouchable GPA.
Stiles despises her.
“Hi Jackson!” Stiles chirps, only to be completely ignored. Still, she has to try again.
Stiles opens her mouth to say something else as they pass, maybe something witty and flirty that’ll leave Jackson with something to think about all day, but Lydia struts past with an icy smile, tugging Jackson along. Stiles snaps her mouth shut.
“You’re the cause of this, you know,” Stiles says bitterly, scowling at Scott. It lacks any real heat and he scoffs, shaking his head. “You drag me down to your nerd depths. I’m a nerd by association.”
“Why do you like him?” Scott asks. She’s explained it many, many times to him, but he just won’t believe there’s a heart of gold under all that Hugo Boss.
“Shut up,” Stiles mutters sourly.
*
There’s a new girl in their English class.
Her name is Allison Argent and Scott is completely gone on her. Stiles can see why; she’s got this girl-next-door sweetness that perfectly complements Scott’s own personality. They’d be good together.
Of course, because Lydia Martin is the destroyer of all good things, she swoops Allison up the second she sees her.
“Tell me why new girl is here all of five minutes and is already hanging out with Lydia’s clique?” Harley asks as they exchange notes in between classes. Scott leans against the lockers, watching her and being completely obvious.
“Beautiful people herd together,” Stiles says matter-of-factly. Harley rolls her eyes, slapping her French notes in Stiles’ hand and grabbing her pre-calc notes in return.
“You watch too much TV, Stilinksi,” Harley says. “Don’t spill anything on my notes!”
“Life imitates art,” Stiles snarks. “Don’t lose mine.” She turns to Scott, tugging on his sleeve to jerk him out of his Allison induced fantasy.
“Come on,” she says. “Time to go to hell.”
*
Beacon Hills High School Boys Lacrosse is sort of a big deal. It’s big enough that the school board felt the need to dismantle the girl’s lacrosse team and dump their allocated funding right into Coach Finstock’s pockets.
It’s a sexist cesspool of toxic masculinity led by Satan himself and Stiles is stuck as assistant to the Coach.
The whole thing was a bit of a misunderstanding, a harmless freshman year prank gone awry. Of course, Finstock hadn’t seen it that way. Instead of sticking her in detention like a reasonable person would, she’d been drafted into taking attendance, noting down plays, and filling out incident reports. The only upside was she got to hang out on the bench with Scott.
“You’re really going to do this to your best friend?” Stiles demands. “If you play, then who am I going to hang out with on the bench? This is already humiliating enough, Scott!”
“I can’t stay out again,” Scott says, fastening on the rest of his pads. “I spend my whole life on the sidelines. This is the year I make first line.” Stiles rolls her eyes at the theatrics, opening her mouth to reply, but Scott isn’t paying attention to her anymore. She follows his line of sight to the bleachers, where all the lacrosse girlfriends are huddled together, shivering and trying not to look miserable.
Ah, Allison. That’s who Scott’s doing this for.
“McCall!” Finstock’s voice rings out across the field. He sends Scott straight into the goal and Stiles winces, settling in got an hour of watching her best friend get pummeled by lacrosse balls.
“Stilinksi, attendance,” Finstock says, dropping onto the bench next to her. She rolls her eyes, shoving her clipboard in his hands. “This accurate?”
“There’s nothing I put more of my attention into, Coach, than getting the attendance done,” Stiles says solemnly. He rolls his eyes, letting the comment slide.
The guys line up after their warmup for shooting practice, the first—Ramirez, Stiles thinks—stepping up at Coach’s whistle. Stiles covers her eyes, peeking between her fingers because she can’t actually look away. Scott looks confused, disoriented.
Ramirez steps up, shoots the ball, and Stiles braces herself.
Scott catches the ball.
And the next one.
And the one after that.
The small crowd cheers, egging Scott on. Jackson steps up to the mark and Stiles sits up a little straighter, allegiance torn between want Jackson to score—god, what a thought—and wanting Scott to survive this.
Scott catches that ball too.
Everyone leaps out of their seats, cheering and screaming Scott’s name, even Lydia Martin. Stiles rolls her eyes at that, but at least Allison looks impressed. Maybe she’ll give Scott a chance, if he ever screws on his balls and talks to her.
*
In the preserve, Scott rambles about practice while they look for his inhaler and the body. Stiles is a little nervous, but excited. She’s never seen a dead body before, and morbid curiosity pushes her forward.
“What do you mean you smell things?” Stiles interrupts. Scott shrugs, eyebrows furrowed.
“I don’t know, I just do,” he says.
“Like?” Stiles asks pointedly.
“Like… the mint mojito gum in your pocket,” Scott says. Stiles scoffs, shuffling through her pockets. She slows when her fingers close around a stick of gum, producing it for Scott to see.
“So, you said this started with a bite?” Stiles asks. Maybe Scott’s sudden enhancement isn’t so much SHIELD jurisdiction as it is Winchester or Buffy jurisdiction. Stiles smirks at the ridiculous idea, shaking her head.
“Maybe it’s my body going into shock?” Scott wonders. “Like filling with adrenaline before it shuts down?”
“You know, I think I’ve heard of this,” Stiles jokes. Her grin widens when Scott takes her seriously. “Yeah, I think it’s called Lycanthropy.”
“Is that bad?” Scott asks worriedly.
“Oh, it’s bad,” Stiles says, surprised she keeps the laughter of her voice. “But only once a month.”
“What?” Scott asks, lost. Stiles smirks, cupping her hands around her hands and howling. Instantly, Scott scowls at her, shoving her. She dodges him, laughing.
“This isn’t funny!”
“You’re the one who heard a wolf!” Scott’s glare deepens. “Yeah, werewolves are no joke.” Still a glare. “Okay, obviously, I’m kidding, but if you see in Shop Class trying to melt down all the silver I can find, it’s because Friday’s a full moon.”
Scott rolls his eyes, going back to find his inhaler. Stiles squirms a little; usually Scott laughs at all her jokes, regardless of how shitty they are. Silent, she helps him look.
Suddenly, she catches movement out of the corner of her eye, looking up to find Derek Hale. Stiles gasps quietly, poking Scott to get his attention. Despite his creeper stance, she can’t help but notice how good lucking he is, with his perfectly cut jaw and piercing green eyes.
“What are you doing here?” Derek asks, voice a low, threatening rumble. There’s something… off about him, something that puts Stiles on edge. “This is private property.”
“Sorry, man,” Stiles says, because Scott has gone silent. “We were just looking for my friend’s inhal—”
Derek throws something that Scott catches, turning on his heel and striding off when he knows Scott has it. It’s the inhaler, and suddenly, Stiles’ body goes rigid and cold with fear. They have to leave. Now.
“Do you know who that was?” Stiles hisses, all but dragging Scott back to the car. “That was Derek Hale!”
“Who?”
“Don’t you remember? He’s only a couple years older than us? He graduated like two or three years ago!” Still, Scott looks a little lost. “His family’s house burned down with everyone in it, like, five years ago.” That was the first case her Dad had handled as newly elected Sheriff. It had been the thing to bring her dad back to sobriety after her mom died, when he’d thrown himself into work. “He left to live with his sister in New York right after.”
“What’s he doing back?”
“No idea,” Stiles says. She has an idea, but she can’t bring herself to say it out loud.
*
Stiles spends the rest of the night researching. She digs up all the public records surrounding the Hale house, then ends up in a Wikipedia spiral about werewolves, actual wolves, and mythological shapeshifter.
At school, she watches Scott carefully, cataloguing every behavioral change from his norm. Not only that, but she watches him carefully for physical changes too. He looks the same as usual, but she does notice he’s breathing a little easier, and not reaching absentmindedly to touch his inhaler, something he used to do constantly.
Finstock has her re-net busted lacrosse sticks on the bench, and when she goes to grab the nets, her phone beeps, an app alert going off. Stiles takes a quick breath, rushing to her car to grab the police scanner. She has it tuned into her dad’s frequency.
Her mind buzzes at the news, fear and adrenaline rushing through her. It nearly overpowers the Adderall working through her system.
She was right.
God, she didn’t want to be right.
“Scott!” she calls as she rushes back to the field, lacrosse sticks forgotten. “Scott, wait up!”
“Can it wait?” he asks in annoyance. “It’s the selections.”
“Listen, I heard my dad get an update on the police scanner, they found animal hair on the body—”
“Stiles, I have to go!” Scott snaps, rushing on to the field.
“Wait, no, Scott, you’re believe what animal it was!” Scott jams his helmet on, a clear signal. “It was a wolf…”
Stiles watches in abject horror and pride as Scott absolutely kills it on the field, twisting, flipping, and outshining every person on the field. Stiles sticks her thumb in her mouth, worrying the nail as Coach announces Scott’s first-line status.
Stiles bee-lines home, rushing to her computer and pulling up all the tabs she found on werewolves and lycanthropy. She starts printing out the pages, leg shaking. Suddenly there’s a knock on the door, making her flinch.
Thankfully—or maybe unfortunately, she still hasn’t decided—it’s Scott. He’s grinning at her, clearly expecting congratulations.
“Get in,” she says tersely. Her whole body is taut, breath coming in shallow puffs. “I’ve been reading, researching, everything. You need to hear this.”
“How much Adderall did you take?” Scott asks with a laugh.
“A lot, doesn’t matter,” Stiles says. “Just listen.” Stiles tries to explain, about the bite, the strength, the speed, the lack of asthma, and his heart rate. The frustration and anger on Scott’s face rises and rises until Stiles mentions blowing off Allison.
Suddenly, she finds herself up against the wall and gasping, tiny whimpers slipping past her lips. She can hear her heart pounding and blood roaring in her ears. Scott brings his arm down hard, scaring a little yelp out of her. He stops then, face the perfect picture of shock.
“Sorry,” he gasps, voice rough and low. “I… gotta go.” Stiles takes a couple deep breaths, sinking to the ground. She’s never been afraid of Scott before, but in that moment, she had no idea what he would do. She sniffles, swiping away a few errant tears.
*
The party, as Stiles predicted, is a bit of a disaster. Scott bails and Stiles chases after him, trying to contain him.
“Let me in,” Stiles says, voice shaking a little. “Scott, I can help.”
“Where’s Allison?” Scott’s voice is garbled, deeper but distorted.
“She’s fine, she got a ride back from the party,” Stiles says distractedly.
“I think I know who it is,” Scott says. “It’s Derek.”
“Scott,” Stiles starts, working to keep her voice calm. “Derek was the one who took Allison home.” There’s a silence, then a thump. Stiles’ heart is slamming in her throat. Her hands begin to shake as she runs her hands through her hair. There’s an awful lump in her throat that hurts to swallow around.
Still, Stiles makes her way over her jeep, quickly scrambling in and locking the doors. She’s not sure what a locked door will do against a couple of werewolves, but it’s better than nothing and she has to find Scott.
The first thing Stiles does is call dispatch. They hate it when she calls—sometimes she just gets bored and calls to see how her dad is—but she has an actual reason tonight. Predictably, the deputy on desk turns Stiles away. She huffs in frustration, deciding to just drive around until shift change, when hopefully someone young and ignorant will be on the line. Preferably someone who has no idea about the “No-Stiles” rule.
Stiles tries not to think very hard about everything that’s happened, to just keep her eyes on the road and peeled for any wolf-like creatures she comes across. God, this is all her fault. She shouldn’t have dragged Scott out that night.
Panic rises, her heartbeats slams faster and faster, and pain spreads through her joints. Her wrists aches and her fingers twinge. She needs to fix this. She needs—
No.
This isn’t her fault.
She didn’t cause this. This was Derek Hale’s fault. He’s the psycho who bit a 16 year-old-kid. He’s the one who probably killed that girl. Everything is his fault.
The pain recedes a little, enough for Stiles to refocus on the road. She checks the time; there’s about three hours until the next deputy takes over the phone lines. Stiles makes a careful circle around Beacon Hills Proper, then around the surrounding subdivisions. She circles the warehouse district next, then the business district.
Unfortunately, the deputy on desk at 3 am knows the “No-Stiles” rule.
Frustrated, she stops at a gas station, buying a couple Redbulls and chugging them in a row. Next stop: the preserve.
It’s probably the most likely, and definitely the one she should have checked first, but she needed the time to talk herself down and pluck up the courage.
She drives the trails for a couple of hours before she calls dispatch again.
“Okay, I just need to know if you’ve gotten any odd calls,” Stiles says, thankful that it’s Moira on dispatch. She’s a little more sympathetic than most. She was friends with Stiles’ mom back in the day.
“Odd how?”
“Just odd,” Stiles tells her. “Like a… a dog-like individual.”
“Dog-like?” Moira’s patience is clearly starting to fray.
“Yeah, a dog-like individual, young-ish, roaming the streets?”
“Stiles, I’m hanging up now.”
“No, no, no, no, no!” Of course, the line clicks off and Stiles slams her phone down into the passenger seat. That’s when she sees Scott. He’s shirtless, a little worse for wear, but he’s alive and looks okay.
“Thank god,” Stiles sighs when she stops to get the door for Scott. His hair flops across his forehead, corners of his eyes crinkling in relief when he sees her.
“Hey,” Scott says tiredly, voice raw.
“You okay?” Stiles asks. He nods, slumping into the front seat.
“You know what I’m worried about right now?” Scott says, running a weak hand over his face.
“If you say Allison, I’m going to kill you,” Stiles grumbles.
“She probably hates me by now,” Scott whines. Stiles doesn’t even deign that with a response, rolling her eyes. Scott sinks a little further, looking so dejected, Stiles can’t just let him wallow.
“Hey, buddy, you’ll come up with a great apology, okay?” Stiles says, wincing a little. She’s not so great at the comfort stuff. “Or… you can tell her the truth? The fact that you’re a freaking werewolf is pretty… okay, bad idea. Listen, we’ll get through this.”
It’s just something to say to keep Scott calm for the moment, but Stiles prays to any deity that might be listening that it’ll be true.